The operating systems that control various kinds of electronic devices, such as desktop computers, laptop computers, tablets, wireless phones, and automobile computers, provide various user interface mechanisms for notifying the user of time-specific events. For example, applications developed to execute on the MICROSOFT WINDOWS family of operating systems can perform notifications via user interface constructs, such as toast notifications, live tiles, and badges displayed in connection with live tiles.
In particular, a toast notification is a notification that is pre-emptively rendered irrespective of the user interface state of the operating system, such as in a rectangle that is displayed on top of whatever visual output was being presented at notification time. For example, a toast notification may announce an incoming voice call. A live tile is a visual representation of an application within a start menu, such as in a rectangle, that can be selected by the user to launch the application, and whose contents change in accordance with the status of the application, in some cases using a badge that is displayed on top of or near the tile. For example, a live tile notification by an email application may visually reflect within the application's tile in the start menu a number of unread email messages received when the start menu is displayed.
When an application for the MICROSOFT WINDOWS family of operating systems is developed, logic is included for defining, using the XML markup language, the notifications that the application will deliver via the operating system. These XML notification definitions utilize tags and their attributes specified by an XML schema for notification definitions.
The use of these constructs in their present form is described in more detail, for example, in the following documents, each of which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety: Boschin, Andrea, Windows 8.1: Easily send your notifications to tiles, toasts and badges, Silverlight Show, Feb. 4, 2014, available at www.silverlightshow.net/items/Windows-8.1-Easily-send-your-notifications-to-tiles-toasts-and-badges.aspx; Microsoft Dev Center—Windows—Develop—How to—Creating a UI—Working with tiles, badges, and toast—and the subtree it defines, available at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/hh761490.aspx; and Microsoft Dev Center—Windows—Develop—How to—User Interface—Tiles, badges and notifications—and the subtree it defines, available at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/hh779725.aspx.